


Echoes Of Time

by Sinsrose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural
Genre: AU, Biting, Brainwashing, Bruises, Character Death, Demon Dean, Drabble Collection, Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Painplay, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sexual Content, Sleep Deprivation, Sleep Sex, Survivor Guilt, Triggers, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-06-06 19:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 48
Words: 17,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6766195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sinsrose/pseuds/Sinsrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a series of ficlets and drabbles based off a collection of asks and threads taken off my tumblr and an au created for a ship of dean winchester/bucky barnes</p><p>    content will vary & its various snippets within the timeline of the created verse.</p><p>  written by myself and @comiitatus on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

‘ The stars look very different today. ‘

He’s mangled, a little bloody and he’s shaken. He’s been a literal wreck within the matter of months in which that things had occurred. The fact of the matter is he’s sitting in a field slightly bloody and more than a little shaken. The chaos that had been brought to life, he couldn’t even imagine considering the events that had pertained had left him   
sickened to his stomach.

It’s been months since the other has been under lock and key. The elder Winchester knows, he by all means knows that he knows too much. He knows too much. He shouldn’t have been able to access the files that he did but the hacking, it runs in his line of work. Hunting never exactly was the type of work that was considered legal. HYDRA isn’t just something that can go away. Even if he knows their numbers are displaced. This soldier. This man, only has so much time. His mouth is dry to be honest. His body leaning against the hood of his car. The blood is sticky and hot between his fingers still, and he can feel his veins pulsing. The other, the other has a higher tolerance to blood loss and pain, Dean is only human. He swallows, fingers pressing into the wound trying not to dwell on the fact it feels like he’s gushing blood. It had been snipers that had come after him. Not that the other had seen that. The fact that Dean is even injured right now isn’t something the Winchester is even talking about. He’s trying to hide it.

The stars are different. The men that had come looking for the other. They weren’t the people Dean dealt with in his life. He didn’t deal with human beings that tortured others into weapons. He dealt with monsters, and it sickened him to the core that these men were desperate to drag anyone under for their use. The stars in the sky are a grim reminder of a light that is long since burned out. At least in his life, Dean has little hope for the world he’s going down considering he’s lost so much since getting back to his own time.

“Yeah, they are. More of them here, not like in the city.”

He’s gritting his teeth to keep the exhale from showing the amount of pain he’s in. And not to mention his body is set on the edge, it’s too quiet. It’s too silent after the fact he had almost been sniped, and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows everything is wrong. That he shouldn’t be alone with the other- that this is dangerous. He wasn’t wrong, he knows he’s not. But he’s too injured to run if something happened now. His body leans against the hood, blood covering his fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dean just wants to forget, bucky can't.

“ PLEASE JUST LET ME FORGET. ”

                                                  the sentiment **ECHOES** between the cavern of his skull, the **CARVED OUT HOLLOWS** of his bones. the spirits trapped in the dilapidated structure of your body are quick to call back,  _REPETITIVE_. feels raw for the want to comfort, to tuck him away inside these twisted ribs. could settle just beneath his lungs, his breathing like a lullaby. **REFRAINS** ; can never tell if it’s _WELCOME_.  
  
                                                  _**(**_  can never tell if you’re _ABLE_ , you’re a goddamn **SPECTER**. don’t know what you’d do if you **SLIPPED RIGHT THROUGH**. or worse, maybe, **MALEVOLENCE** pouring through your fingertips, you bleed people **DRY** with such fucking _EASE_.  _ **)**_

                                                  tucks palms against his ribs like holding himself **THERE** at all, lips twisting.     **“** it don’t work like that,  **”**    and it’s not so _UNKINDLY_ offered, but **SOFTNESS** doesn’t settle right on his tongue. _RUEFUL_ , at least, for all that’s fucking worth.     **“** you fuckin’ know i _would_ if i _could_.  **”**


	3. Chapter 3

"COME ON, NOW. YOU'VE LIVED THROUGH WORSE THAN THIS. JUST... JUST LIVE THROUGH THIS TOO."

                                                 
  there’s a point where pain winds itself so intricately around your bones that it’s no longer some separate sensation. it becomes ; consumes. parasitic in the bursts of blood vessels that color you some abstract piece. shadows your skeleton, this atomic thing that’s been set off between your lungs  _**&**_ bucky barnes has always had such a strange, strange relationship with pain. his meter’s busted, his scale doesn’t quite fit. like there are things you don’t notice and things you don’t mention and things that feel like bursting through your ribs, fucking ripping you inside out, but you’re smiling, you’re smiling, there’s blood on your teeth. like please, sir, may i have another because all he’s ever wanted is this fucking boot in his mouth, sure, like he doesn’t know any goddamn better or he’s gonna bite you on the upswing, this petty little dog and there, then, it’s worth it to feel the pressing crack of those tiny, tiny hand bones. his meter’s busted, his scale doesn’t quite fit. sometimes it’s like fuck you and sometimes it’s like fuck me, some challenge between bared teeth and sometimes, sometimes it’s like this :  
  
                                                   nothing.

                                                  sometimes it’s nothing because it’s so much easier to slip out of the skin. and that’s how you know it’s _bad_. because it’s nothing. because somewhere along the way he’s simply shed. receptors overloaded ; too much input, and it’s a lot like shutting down. like stepping away. best damn magic trick he ever learned, maybe, except for how he fucking hates it, the way the leaking universe seeks to fill the gaps. cosmic dust like filler for these broken empty spaces. he’s never liked free falling and that’s what this is going to be.  the body trembles, and maybe that’s why it takes so long to draw his focus to Dean. too fixated on the rattling of fingers that he can’t feel. shakes like the fucking ground, like some attempt to coax blood free from the very back. can’t leave a drop, scrape and scrape and scrape until the veins are clean. someone might want to repurpose them for something useful later. draws a breath, some halting expansion of the lungs and you’re smiling you’re smiling there’s blood on these teeth,     **“**  you of all people should know,  **”**    the head tips and bucky is watching through liquid eyes, vision blurred with some distant tiredness.     **“**  this dying thing never sticks. **”**


	4. Chapter 4

“THERE ARE SOME SECRETS I WILL TAKE TO MY GRAVE. BUT I DON’T WANT LOVING YOU TO BE ONE OF THEM.”

  fingers push through sandy hair, repetative. over and back, around the shell of his ear. wearing paths, marking these little trails for himself, more to soothe his own bones than anything. like he might forget the way to the corner of his jaw between here and back. touching for the sake of it, now, because in this moment he can tolerate the weight of the other pressing against him.  sets his jaw just gently, and the first words that want to bubble up are ‘ _who would you tell_. ‘ some offhand cruelty. a thoughtlessness that would inevitably tear. nobody wants to be reminded of these heavy handed things, the blood that still clings to the edges of fingernails, so hard to scrape away. lingering. he swallows it down with effort, some hot edged shame for the thought at all.  offers, instead, a shrug, lip settling between his incisors. it takes a stuttering moment for his fingers to return to their ministrations, and he says     **“** so don’t let it be,  **”**    like it’s so easy as that. it is, maybe, sitting right here in this isolated system. lets his eyes fall closed ; he’s tired, but there’s a smile lingering just at the edges of his mouth. hums a bit, like lazily acknowledging his own presence. could be laughter, maybe, if he tried a bit harder, or at all.     **“** we’ll get matching t - shirts or something.  **”**

 


	5. Chapter 5

YOU EVER THOUGHT ABOUT WHO YOU COULD HAVE BEEN IF YOU HAD TAKEN A DIFFERENT PATH?

                                                 teeth drag over the skin of his underlip, slightly swollen and busted just enough that it still tastes like copper when his canine catches on it. there’s a cigarette burning down between his fingers and he’s only taken maybe a drag, mind landing somewhere in middle distance. not quite here or other, the way he tends to slip in the face of pervasive calmness. like he doesn’t know what to do with it.  the question settles against him mostly gentle, pools lapping at his bones. some distant thing it takes him a moment to settle in his palms. mouth twists, but it doesn’t quite make the leap to a smile, so easily brushed away with the curt shake of his head.     
  
  **“** it wouldn’t make a difference,  **”**    and that speaks to several things. the most prevalent being that it doesn’t matter if he dwells on it, he’s fucking here. but more than that : it’s not like he was ever some kind of better man. it’s not like he had some grand choice in the breaks of road he was offered. and there’s a smile, here, cut - glass and aching. some self deprecating thing that finds residence on his features. shrugs, this ill - fitting careless gesture.     **“** all would’ve ended up some shade of the same. **”**


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sex is no better than the violence of men, or their lives

“I WANT YOU TO FUCK ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN AND I DON’T WANT YOU TO STOP, EVEN IF I TELL YOU TO.” 

                                                 there’s a point when words find his skin that he feels disconnected ; his bones some exploded diagram, and want sinks in. or rather, floods. hot and bright and suddenly aching. voice to a pushing boundary that his own mouth couldn’t quite shape. now that it’s there, its insistent. pervasive. some brutal desperation the only thing that keeps his hands from shaking. you crash together like a lightning strike because you’ve got no other way to be ; violence is inherent. so it is written, or so they say.  it’s not even a smile, just a baring of his teeth. these sharpened things from his time with the wolves, and oh, but he could swallow the other whole. and here he’s laid out an invitation for these greedy claws. here and here and here : hips and wrists and throat, leave dirty, burning trails of fingerprints. possessive, mine, mine, mine and push him down with ease, with need. brutal burning bones coiled under paper skin, coiled over _him_ , and it’s nothing to bear down. nothing to set his lead heavy frame against the other’s, thumb on his cheek and pressing in until he can feel the separation of teeth like a reminder : you asked for this, you asked.


	7. Chapter 7

"DO YOU MISS THE WORLD AND HOW IT WAS BEFORE ALL THIS?" IT'S A QUITE QUESTION THAT SETTLES WITH A BITTER TASTE IN HIS MOUTH, STANDING BETWEEN TWO POINTS WITH THE EX-ASSASSIN IN THE BUNKER. IT'S A STRIKING REALITY CONSIDERING THE HELL THAT BOTH OF THEM HAVE EXPERIENCED. THE ELDER WINCHESTER KNOWS MORE ON HIM, THAN THE SOLDIER KNOWS BOUT DEAN. BUT THE OTHER KNOWS HELL, CAN SEE IT IT DEAN'S EYES. HE PAUSES MOUTH DRY. "I SAW YOU FALL THAT DAY, ASSUMED YOU WERE DEAD. I WOULD HAVE SAVED YOU."

                                                  tongue presses against the backs of his incisors, a blunt and useless sort of pressure ; does little good to draw his focus, some wide brim attempt and mostly, he’d be better off just biting down. blood would make a fine ink for these thoughts that press against the soft skin of his cheek like hammer keys. some half written story he’ll just swallow down. again, again, again.  exhales, and his eyes lift upward. searching, maybe, for something he doesn’t know. words or strength or whatever it is people seek out in pulling ribbons from the clouds. mostly he gets nothing, and that’s nothing new. can’t even see the sky, from here,  just impressions of light through matte glass and the hope it might rain, later ———— he’s taken a liking to the rain, anymore. nothing half so cleansing as the poets suggest, but it is sensually satisfying. satisfies his senses. provides a pervasive white - noise ; some static that cancels the rhythm of his oft cycling thoughts, a nothingness that doesn’t coincide with the silence that slithers under his skin. strikes in heavy drum beats along his spine and wrists and throat. persistent, and only just. a little discordant, maybe, against the thrumming presence of his body’s perpetual ache. he thinks, sometimes, about burrowing himself down somewhere where it rains all the time.  
  
                                                  blinks, once, a languid sort of thing and draws his attention back to Dean, mouth twisting as he lets the inquiry dig between his teeth. fingers curl in a restlessness echoed in the irregular jump of his lungs, a twisting discomfort. brings them to press along his collar bone like he might soothe both with a single gesture. offers, finally :     **“** it wouldn’t have mattered, **”**    ignoring the former question because he doesn’t know how to answer, truthfully. some over - complicated cycle that twists ‘round his bones like vines, like a vice or some otherwise crippling thing. but the latter, _oh_  ; he’s given thought to the random occurrence of tragedy. and sure, there had been a set of circumstances that set him up to fail, so to speak, but the fact of the matter is simply that : it wouldn’t have mattered. he doesn’t know if that’s worse, doesn’t let himself think about it. he was a body. right place, right time, or a variation of depending on perspective. if he had died, way back when, before and before and before. if he had died in that fucking factory, or any other of the hundreds of fucking times that he hoped for it, it wouldn’t have stopped anything. just a cog, a cog, a spinning little thing ; replaceable in the grandest scheme.

                                                  _**&**_ he doesn’t have the absolution to offer, if he’s being wholly honest. there is always a selfish part of him that holds a bloody, raw bitterness for fucking all of it. could say _it’s not your fault_ , because in the simplest sense, it’s true, but nobody wants to hear it and it cuts up his throat just for thinking it. he’s not made for kindnesses, anymore. they writhe and die in the hollow of his throat. this is how they make you a monster. let you eat yourself from the inside out. you were always something a little awful, weren’t you _?_

                                                  molars catch on the inside of his cheek, some thoughtless drag until the familiar copper tang of blood solidifies into words.     **“** i was just lucky. nothin’ you could’ve done and there’s —— **”**    fingers flex, a slip of words and he simply picks up at some other available line,     **“** no sense in beatin’ yourself up over that shit. **”**


	8. Chapter 8

“DONT”

> **pin my muse** || send _DON’T_ to prevent them from leaving

                                                   stutter - stop of breath, catches like his palm on your skin, like your spine on the wall. points of contact and scraping up the lungs. _**&**_ bucky’s little bit raw in the places where skin meets skin, bare and burning and strange. like these pinpoint touches have the power to strip his bone clean.

                                                   shifts against the gesture but the truth is the lingering impression of fear makes him small. catches him off - guard, here, electric under his sternum. fight or flight or deep ingrained tendency to write himself flexible in avoidance. easy to be maneuvered. bend his bones to fit a mold. still, he bares his teeth like he’s not curling easy under guiding hands, and the tip of his jaw is more a dare than a baring of his throat. see where you can fit your teeth. if. if. if. always an ember under tender flesh.     **“** the _fuck_ ,  **”**    exhaled, clipped through teeth to form letters, and he’s pressing back against the hold again. prodding his bonds.     **“** let. me. go.  **”**  



	9. Chapter 9

❝ KISS ME. ❞

                                                   draws a breath, some tempestuous drag over his lips. little control. little care to control. the demanding nature of the thing rolls down his spine, ripples under skin in search of a place to settle. soft handed and aching and it strikes against him like a match. exhales, in cycle. warm and too - short stutter. catches Dean by the jaw and spreads the blood in his mouth like a seal. some ink - stain promise to paint the other’s parchment skin. red and red and spreading, some fever brilliant tie. tucks it behind teeth that aren’t his own, sharp and clean and coated in promise and he inhales, again, in rhythm. breathes in the other’s exhale and smiles, wide and bright and copper - sweet.   **“** _sure._   **”**


	10. Chapter 10

"DO YOU LOVE ME?"

                                                   he recites poetry with fingertips instead of spoken word. morse code beats on tabletops, on clothed skin is easier, mostly, than convincing his tongue to curl around sweet faring syllables. his has always been a language of action, even before ————   but he’s gotten familiar with the way tongues weave lies through smiling teeth. so _fucking_ familiar. now, wrists are sacred, valley between knuckles is hallowed ground. language is malleable, but the way that the thin skin at the crook of an elbow prickles is unable to be falsely produced. stretches of skin are infinitely more truthful than any gifted, gilded words.

                                                  see : you hold his skin tender as you stitch up wounds that aren’t yours to heal. you’ve had his blood on your hands and you’ll still sit together in the morning. see : you dig your thumb into his shoulder even though you can’t quite meet his eyes, or he can’t meet yours. some mutual agreement for the bruises that will linger. see : you’ve never been holy, but you’re gonna fucking try. you’ll break yourself open at this makeshift confessional because you miss the way his fingers brush yours when he hands you your coffee cup.

                                                   see : bucky smiles, like it chokes him, just a little. these tentatively offered words that crash on his skin like midnight waves. sharp and breaking, just under the line of sight. so plainly put that his breath stutters, for a moment. start - stop - start, kindle the fire between his ribs. a sparking endearment that catches just right against his dry - brush bones, and there, there.     **“** you’re an idiot, you know that _?_   **”**    but it’s so saturated with fondness it’s dripping blue, and fingers have snaked their way around the other’s tender wrist ; there’s a firm enough positive relayed by the press of a thumb just between bones. digging a space, an anchor, a fuse.


	11. Chapter 11

SEND ME FIVE TIMES KISSED FOR A DRABBLE ABOUT FIVE TIMES OUR MUSES KISSED. 

  
**_i._**  
                                                 teeth taste like cheap liquor and you shouldn’t be doing this, you _shouldn’t_. but sin makes everything taste a bit sweeter ; forbidden fruit, right here, in your palm. fuck, but you weren’t ever looking for eden, anyway, just a good time, so dig in, dig in. you know your mouth is cigarette stale ———— you had to smoke three just to work up the courage, one after the other, end to end, but the way his moan echoes in your throat is worth it.  
  
 _ **ii.**_

                                                  there’s hardwood at your back and his hands on your wrists, your shoulders, you’d probably take them around your fucking throat. you’re unfailingly reckless, like that. catch his mouth like you’re looking to swallow him whole, tongue pressing along the back of his teeth, teasing. spread your thighs and invite him here, to the cradle of your hips. shameless when cornered, four walls to separate you from the rest of the world. you’re leaving in the morning so who cares, who cares.  
  
 _ **iii.**_  
  
                                                  dig your teeth into a familiar sharp jaw, some stranger’s bones. fuck a hundred other girls with those same bright eyes. you’ve got a type, you know, and it’s mostly foreign bodies that can take that offset violence that’s lurked just under your skin since birth. you’ve had callouses since childhood and you’ve gotta press harder, harder, harder through the layers built up around palms. you’re on your knees in a whorehouse ; you’ve got your tongue in some French girl’s cunt and you’re wondering if any of the half - rotted boys you wandered across today are yours.  
  
 _ **iv.**_

                                                  you’ve got gunmetal fingers, pressing them into his mouth. against his tongue. exploring or relearning or a hundred other excuses. mostly you like the way he indulges, slips between digits as easily as he would your lips. suckles like you’re something sweet, like there aren’t a thousand hauntings lingering between your touch and his ; like lowering ghosts behind his teeth and he smiles and he’ll take it and you know, you fucking know. he’ll wear your specters like a smile and you’re so, so greedy.  
  
 _ **v.**_

                                                  this best of all : a seal, sweetly chaste. brush of lips on lips, a fraction of thunder and done and it’s the best fucking thing to happen to you for the better part of a century. you can’t help but smile like working on the laughter lines that are so sure to come. etch them into your edges, fast as possible. it’s funny, maybe, you don’t think you’ve ever been so light for that overhanging inevitability of death. the assurance of, for your dusty bones and weathering skin. a proper history book. like you should be. _(_ it’s funny, maybe, in retrospect, because this strange and monumental thing might be the first kiss you’ve ever shared that he’ll be the one to forget. a sweet kind of secret, or something of that ilk, and you’ll catch his lips again, just for it. _)_

 


	12. Chapter 12

"HAIL HYDRA." 

                                                   the words sink cold, like stones, clattering against his ribs. raise your right hand, this is an oath. skin on skin on shaking birdcage ribs ; slip fingers just along his neck. soft, like a lover. soft, like there’s an understanding. like muscles aren’t twisting themselves up, grinding together just under the surface. like there’s not a decay spread with every exhale. smiles, and he tucks it against the other’s ear. smiles, and it’s nothing, just a feral baring of teeth. smiles, and it’s waiting for blood. digs his fingertips in like a vice, like railroad spikes. hold him down and hold him close. here is his oath, red right hand :     **“** i will break your fucking neck. **”**    let the words curl ‘round the shell of the other’s ear, an empty intimacy. if this is a joke, he’s not playing. tightens his grip, thumb stroking an arc with no kindness to be found. a breath of a second chance ; he speaks cruelty more finely than most.


	13. Chapter 13

❛ You mean a bunch of royal dead guys are watching us? ❜

  


   He would have found it funny if it wasn’t for the fact that this was the story of Dean’s life. That experiences like this were normal. That normal wasn’t really normal, considering everything. Considering the fact that, he was talking to a man that should have been dead. That shouldn’t have been alive, that shouldn’t be existing. But he was, he was alive and had a heart that was still beating.    
  
    It was luck. Pure luck that, the elder Winchester wasn’t dead himself. Considering the range of events that had pertained in his life before finding out that Bucky was still existing. And the man hadn’t aged a day over his twenties unlike Dean that was well almost into his forties, almost nicking them but not quiet. The ghosts that lingered in this area were ones of royal blood and not exactly friendly. It’s why he was standing amidst a cematary with the other, shovel in hand digging. Twilight long gone, and the eves of the night left with them.     
  
        “Just keep digging. If we start seeing sets of eyes watching us, that   
        won’t be a good thing. You don’t want to be mauled by a ghost, even   
        if you heal quicker than me.”    
  
  Dean knows. He knows a little too much on the other. He can remember those nights (laced with kissing that he drank to forget in a shitty apartment ) that he had managed to rent out back in Brooklyn during that time that he was hunting.  He can remember clear as the day that the fact, the other had gotten him to laugh even when he hadn’t understood completely that Dean has going to die no matter how hard the other tried to fix him. It’s how hounds worked. It was how deals with demons worked, and honestly it had still been for nothing considering his brother had jumped into hell to seal the Devil away.

      He remembers more of a man than a soldier beside him. Not that it matters, they’re both soldiers in their own ways. Just different versions of hell. Different echoes of lives. Dean presses the shovel into the topsoil with a clang as it hits the rock, the air chilly. The evidence of cold there. The cold spots. Not that he’s concerned, Bucky has good aim when it comes to guns.    
  
        “Quicker we burn these bones, the better. Then we can get out of this shitty town.”    
  
    The longer the other stays, the more he remembers. The more the elder Winchester wants to push him away. Push him out. Attachments in his life lead to death. Death leads to guilt. And he never wins, nothing in his life has ever been good. And he can feel the mark burn under his skin, leaving a smoldering wake again, and he wants to shout a God. Why did he deserve this? But he doesn’t. He just learns to deal with the smoldering and focus on what’s right.   
  
      “Let’s torch this sucker.”


	14. Chapter 14

“I’ve been asking the impossible of you, I see that now.”

  


      The words burn beneath. The way that the world spins, the way that it tilts on it’s axis is parallel to the soldier- to the man (that he once knew).  His memories of what was and what never really should have existed burn under the flesh like a liquid poison, that drains beyond the flesh and heartbeat that makes up what is human. The way that the world falls, the way that the truth falls hurts and burns.  
  
 It burns in the worst possible way, because stories like this aren’t supposed to be real. Nightmares like this, people turned into ghosts. Turned into machines, into something less than human. It belongs in Dean’s world that is monsters and lore, and everything that children were learned to fear in the dark. But everything that he knows. Everything that he’s seen about this man, has lead him to take a beating that isn’t just  _physical_. And god if Sam was alive, he’d smack his older brother for being so stupid.   
  
 It’s mental exhaustion that sinks beneath his skin. He let the other too far under his skin. He was damned, damned before he had even met the ghost standing before him. He’d seen him fall and the coils of guilt still linger below his skin. The echoes of shouting and silence and than rage when he had violently _murdered_  the God that had lead him to the other’s timeframe in the first place. He had been too attached. He was trying to salvage what had lingered from a bond that no longer existed really.   
  
    When memories turn to ash—   
  
              You meant nothing to him. You can’t ask him for love.  He’s not built the same anymore. Years of torture do that to you. Don’t you remember that from Hell? If you can’t be comfortable in your own skin, why love someone else? You were damned from the start, you were doomed from the start.     
  
                        “You can’t love a ghost.”   
  
 The words are soft, and coarse and there’s that underline of hurt that echoes from somewhere that shouldn’t. A memory long ago scattered and tucked away in the back of his mind when he plays old records that date back to the forties in the bunker. The man standing before him, is no longer the same person he had met. That he would have given anything to save. And putting what Dean would do for him aside, Dean is too damaged himself. Too wrecked from Hell.   
  
    He’s afraid of letting anyone in. He’s seen too much. A ghost has seen too much of him. He’s seen parts, heard a side of him that was long supposed to be dead. Even if he can manage a smile around him, the elder winchester is no longer the same. He wakes up with the same nightmares not to mention he won’t get over blaming himself for his brother being gone.   
  
                          “Buck, you can’t expect everything to fall back how it was.   
                           Everything I had is in ruins. I fared about the same as you,  
                             but you just haven’t seen that.”          
  
    You don’t know how much of me is dead inside. You shouldn’t stay.   
    I’m better off alone. I kill anyone that loves me or is family. Don’t let   
    me kill you too.        
  
               “It’s safer if you go. ”    
  


                 Let me do this on my own.  Don’t let me get hurt again.   
                                    I lost you once, that was enough.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> brief summary of a ship

## “bucky and dean and strange indulgent self care t bh. it’s just. yeah, like. these soft interludes, tbh. like. stillness. blood in the bathwater and features illuminated by cheap fluorescent bulbs. lulled to sleep by leaky faucets and the repetition of tires on the road. silent breakfasts, when it’s still early enough that the sun is barely beginning to rise. leaning against the impala with a beer or propped up against a cheap diner with a cigarette. just. these nice little vignettes for the spaces in between.”


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> death touches everything you love

“I’ve got you, don’t worry.”

  


  He wants to tell him. He wants to say that it’s too _late_. That his body has given up, that the struggle to breathe, to sit upright is real. That the blood that laces his body, that is seeping through his chest, hurts, that the hurt is more than a dull throb, it’s a pounding _echo_. That this mark, it wasn’t just about saving people. It was his ultimatum. That it was his death wise. That some part of him, knew he was going to be sitting here looking at the other.   
  
    That he was going to die. That death he was okay. And god, his features, his features have that hint of scared look on them. And he’s clutching at the other like a lifeline. He really is clutching at him like there’s nothing left. The soldier beside him, has seen him come undone in so many ways that  aren’t something that the elder Winchester would normally show someone. He’s gotten too far under his skin. The other had gotten too close to him. He had made himself a home where he had none. And Dean can’t forgive the fact that he’s going to _die_  in his arms. Quiet literally. 

 His breaths come out soft and shaken. A hard swallow leaving his lips. He’s sorry. If he could say that he would. He would say it, but he can’t. It isn’t the time or place to. Bucky still thinks there’s hope for him, that the teeth of death haven’t been purchased on him. That there’s a soul left to be safe, or at least what is left of it from Dean. His mouth is dry, and he can taste his own blood when he speaks. The weight of his words are jarring across his head that’s slowly fading into a blackness that is quiet and soft.      
  
             “Listen, I’m proud of us. Don’t look for a way to bring me back. I’ve been that road.   
                      You can’t live like that. Promise me,  I won’t come back.” 

 Promise me you’ll let me _die._ The steady heartbeat thumps into nothing. Nothing but blackness and a kind of weightlessness that cannot be fathomed. The words spoken by Bucky he cannot hear, his head just drops in the other’s hands. He’s already _gone_. Dean’s gone, and the remains of him are draped across a man that has seen so much blood in his years alive but this one _burns_. This wasn’t  just another mission. This was a person that knew him before the war had changed him. And when Dean’s body falls against his, it’s jarring and unsettling how wrong it feels to lose someone like this, and it’s like a haunted memory of _falling_  all over again.

  



	17. Chapter 17

❝Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Don’t fucking touch me!❞

  


     It’s the way that memory works. It’s the way that recollection and the scattered pattern of remembering and not remembering works. The faults in the code and the man that lurks beyond what has been pressed into what is a ghost. It’s a settling reminder that everything is not as golden as it once was. That everything is still hanging on a seam, that things are not and will not ever be exactly normal.  

And the Winchester has to pause, mid-step, considering this lash out was unexpected completely out of the blue.  It was unexpected considering, less than a half hour ago the pair of them had been talking as if nothing had even been wrong. Dean had overstepped somewhere, or triggered something and he isn’t exactly sure what it was. He just knows, it’s really not a good idea to touch Bucky when he gets like this, unless he wants a metal arm colliding with the side of his face. But it also isn’t good to leave him completely alone either. And he’s at a standstill, so he just does one thing he can.   
  
 Playing records, try to fill the gaps, fill the echoes in the other’s mind without saying a word, hoping the storm will pass. It’s the only thing he can do for now. Until he can get close enough to help him without the risk a a hand colliding with his face.


	18. Chapter 18

“Better your life, justify your pain.”

  


    It’s the echo of fragments. The steady tic and pull of time. The steady wake, the haunting reminder that he had awoken to being _human_. That the mark that had been placed upon his skin as a burden had been pulled from his skin. That the memory, the echo of pain and thoughts that had followed them were gone. But Dean’s haunted by the men. The touches of time, the fact that the men had tried to use him. It’s a jarring reminder that monsters aren’t just monsters but also men.   
  
And it explains how the two of them are at a standstill in the bunker. Dean patching his wounds, those monsters he saw were Bucky’s own. Those men were among HYDRA. What had created the other’s nightmares. A soft exhale leaving his lips, fingers scrubbing across the wounds, leaving a faint red in the water. He should be stitching it, but the pain is a jarring reminder. He should have been decades ago but fate over and over has saved his skin.  His eyes watch the water as it splashes on bare skin as a faint pink color. He digs the facecloth into the skin, as if digging deeper will cleanse his soul. It never really has. He was too damned from birth. He leans against the china, eyes barely even focused on the fact that the soldier had entered. It wouldn’t be the first time. He closes his eyes, half drowning in the pain that strikes across him.    
  
 “It was so much easier. I miss when it was just looking for my dad. And just killing shit, it turned into so much more. What I’ve learned on my family. It’s always been about me andc my brother, it’s all lead to us surviving, or me.” He pauses fingers digging into the wound almost seeming like he’s inflicting a deeper wound but he’s just cleaning it.   
  
      “I wish, I could have stayed in your time, Hell. I wish I could have found you, if I went back knowing what I knew now. I would have given up my family, to save you. My brother would have been living, and he’d be better off. He knew how to survive outside this life of _killing.”_  Dean lets his wound rest in the water, drenching it a red color.     
  
    “I have to ask you, why do you stay with me still  
                        even with how much pain your heart remains in?”    
  
He’s noticed the other’s lack of sleeping, he’s not stupid, he just chooses not to pick at that wound most of the time.


	19. Chapter 19

“I’m missing you.”

  


    It’s the quiet voice that he hears on the edge of sleepiness. It’s the quiet sound of a voice that is scratched and worn, and not as alive as it used to be. It’s the sound of someone that thinks attachment is a weakness, that it shouldn’t be allowed. The elder’s Winchesters eyes are closed but he still listens.  
  
 He always has been aware. And he shouldn’t be aware of the subtle movements. The way that he knows how the other moves. How he slinks forward, how his feet pad dead silent on the floor. But also how he feels the bed sink with movement. The way that the other curves around him, in a way that he doesn’t dare do. He’s learned, not to touch Bucky. It’s easier. It’s less of a hassle, he lets the other come to him. The other doesn’t like to be touched. He’s more of a soldier, and less of someone that is damned.    
  
                     I miss you. But you don’t want to hear that. So he lets his eyes remained closed, not focused on the fact that the other has propped against him. He settles under the content, something that he’s lacked over the years, the warmth he felt from Bucky back in the forties, it seems so selfish to want that back. He’d kill to see the other smile again.    
 _  
You’re an idiot, but I love you._


	20. Chapter 20

“In the end I gave my life for you.”

  


    It’s the still air and the quiet that makes him uneasy. He knows, that statement to be true. He knows that in his gut, in his heart, that statement is beyond true. It’s unsettling to hear it but he knows. Dean knows the depth of the words. He knows by the way that Bucky’s blood bleeds, he knows by the color of it. The fact that it spills out like a rapid liquid now and the hurt and recovery lingers there for days. He knows this because he spent time soaking in a bathtub settled next to the other and then helped stitch the other’s wounds closed. It’s a reminder that he literally was the one that granted Bucky a life, a human life. And Dean wants to feel guilty he really does but the other has been a ghost for so long, so long that seeing him smile and enjoy things he used to, makes Dean happier than it should.     
  
             “You’re an idiot, James. A real idiot, but I don’t think  
               I would have stopped you. You smile more now, it’s   
                   good to see that again.”   


	21. Chapter 21

“Couldn’t survive the fall.”

  


   It’s a statement that leaves a dead silence. That type of standstill that no one really   
   wants to deal with. That type of silence after a topic that has been mentioned but you  
    really hate the taste it leaves in your mouth. Not one soul likes the mention of the   
    matter that is spoken about. It’s a haunting reminder that both of them share two   
     sides of the same coin.  It leaves his mouth dry and at a bitter standstill.    
  
                 “Neither of us did. Did I ever tell you, that I went to hell?”  
  
      _you don’t drown your demons you just learn how to swim._


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> death, death warning.

bucky has died. B)

        “…..has died.” finish it in my ask.   
  
His skin is beyond numb. There are events, there are places- there are things that cannot be changed. Dean Winchester knows this better than anyone. He knows these facts over and over again. And this dream, this dream is always the same. It is one that lingers, it is one that is so deeply rooted into his skin. And he can remember it like he had been there still. Recall as if he had been standing there on the train, feeling the cold wind.  
  
 Of course he had been hidden the other hadn’t known that he had followed, considering any shot at the time God was a good thing. The other didn’t need to know that he had to put his life on the line. but this, this had made him freeze. considering the onslaught of events that had occurred, maybe it was the fact he had gotten so close to the soldier. maybe it was the fact he was a familiar person in a sea of people he was lost in. and everything within dean’s axis had tilted, despite the fact the god was fighting him- despite the fact bits and pieces of his life were being taken from him. he was at a standstill because of what he was seeing.   
_  
bucky- he was hanging by a thread.  
_  
   this. this wasnt meant for him. Dean would have rather seen himself on that ledge, he rather would have seen himself. but he knew- he knew that there was no saving a man, the time was too little. there wasnt enough time, there never had been, the elder Winchester wasn’t even supposed to see this event. it was evident by bucky yelling out for his friend- _captian america– what was his life anymore?_    
  
superheros werent supposed to even exist. but he was watching a man die. he was watching someone fall to his death. and it rips at his heart, not in the same way it had when sam had been stabbed but it hurts in a way that hurts him much harder than it should. he’s too attached, he cared too much for the kid. and his lungs are winded and everything aches, when his body slams into the time god at the exact same time that bucky lets go and he hears him _scream_. and the flash of red is deafening and dean’s no longer in the chilly aples, but he’s home.  
  
          _home and shouting. yelling._   And his brother is there with him making sure the god is as good as dead.    

  
_but that had been years ago._  
  
    He’s standing within the bunker standing upright, and it’s three am in the morning. It’s three am and he wants to sink down against the wall and scream. But he doesn’t because he’s living with the ghost that twisted his heart in his dreams. And his footsteps are soft pads when he slinks over to where the other is still asleep for once. Fingers only daring to touch his forehead when asleep, and careful not to stir him at all. A quick movement and a soft whisper.   
  
         “It would have been so much easier if you had been saved.”    
  
He turns back, letting out an exhale and retreats, hands shaking as he leaves.


	23. Chapter 23

“The truth is so cold.”

  


   He’s tired. He’s more than tired. He’s exhausted considering everything. Standing among this, among the fires. Among everything. Among everything, it’s nothing but wreckage and everything feels so lost. The remains of the fires aren’t of monsters anymore, it’s of men that have done more damage than anyone could really understand. It’s of men that tortured and broke the solider standing among the wreckage along with him. It’s a biter paradise. Really. He feels numb really having seen the evidence of decades of torture.     
  
                     “You trust me?”   
  
His fingers are still holding a knife Bucky had passed to him. He’s going to gut anyone that was alive in that room doing that to Bucky, this perhaps is the one time where he wants to murder someone that isn’t a monster.


	24. Chapter 24

❝ will you trust me when i say that i’ll make it up to you somehow?❞

  


  It’s an unsteady echo. The lingering memory in his head. The blood coming from his temple, is _minor_. The blood coming from him- it had been a injury pertained on an accident but it could have been much worse. It could have been if it wasn’t for the fact that, Bucky quiet literally took a bullet for him. These aren’t monsters he’s dealing with. These are corrupted men that want to murder and hurt them both. A solid exhale of breath from within him is evident.  It had been decades before this, that promise. And here he is- a Russian solder- an exassassin saving Dean from the men that had inflicted so much damage onto Bucky.  His fingers grip his gun a little tighter, fingers pulling himself up via a tree.     
  
                “I owe you one, kid. Guess you weren’t lying when   
                           you said you’d owe me for saving your ass those years ago.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> demons and deals

❝ don’t tell me that i’m wrong. ❞

  


    It’s the movement of his though the silhouettes and shadows that leaves a sort empty yet stabbing crawling beneath the skin. The scent of sulfur and something more lingers, a demon raised from hell standing in the flesh. The weight of the world being on his shoulders gone, and yet here he stands with a man that has everything on his shoulders. The demon would be lying if he said it was the dean that the other knew.     
  
         “Would you prefer a lie? Or would you like to dance with a devil?  
            I could give you so much.You could remember what it was like to be human.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a brief intermission

You gave your soul, so those who were weak could live. You gave up everything for a man that was nothing more than a shadow. You gave him something you couldn't even fathom, humanity. And he spoke your name in the most heart-wrenching way that you hadn’t heard in years. You traded the ashes of what you had become for something with a greater purpose.

It was a sacrifice that you didn’t even you made. You gave him a home. You gave him your soul. In return you gave a boy one thing he yearned for. He is no longer a shadow or a ghost, he is a man able to walk  within his own shoes and bleed. You brought him home. He saved you when you didn’t believe there was anything left to save. And in return you see the laughter and the joy he once held. You were able to breathe. Push away that guilt of seeing him fall. 

 

You brought him home. And he saved your soul. But he doesn’t know that. Instead he tells you, ‘you’re an idiot’ and you just tell him 'i know’ even as your heart beats louder than it should. You fell in love with this man at the cost of your soul. But you would do it all it all over again if it meant saving the little things in life. Saving what was human, you were damned but he brought you back to life.    And dying won’t be so hard knowing that you saved someone that choose to stand beside you.  

  
    You brought him home. And his heart remains in your hands. Even after all these years.  

  
                        You’re an idiot but you love him.


	27. Chapter 27

“And I’ve lost my power to feel tonight.”

  


  It’s a heavy weight that stretches across the limbs. The way that it settles and snarls and makes its way beneath the skin. It burns and aches, it leaves marks that are unseen. It’s a settled coarse weight that feels like it’s ripping him into fragments. He breathes out in a hiss, a exhale, A steady movement.  He knows the feeling, he knows what it feels like. Which could explain this standpoint of which his fingers are very gentle, combing through brunette locks. Very few people can even be this close, let alone pull this off. The movements are softer than the rougher hands that they are both used to, when they both patch one another wounds.     
  
        “I used to do this, you had so much on your mind.   
                           Back when you were just worried about a war.”   
  
 Back when you didn’t have to worry about falling. His fingers sweep in soothing movements, as if trying to let the other sink into his thoughts. He knows that Bucky can be blank slated, it’s a sideffect of living through hell. It is easier not to feel than to feel.   
  
            “Just focus on breathing, kid. It’s easier.”  
  
 he is lying of course, theres days that he wishes he had died, not that the other ever needs to know that.


	28. Chapter 28

“I’ve known it from the start all these good ideas will tear your brain apart.”

 

    He’s at a standstill, feet planted  on the floor. When anyone thinks about it, everyone would see ho fractured they are. His younger brother would have slapped him for the fact that he’s let himself get so hurt over a single man. Not that Sam ever knew about his encounter anyway. He was more concerned about the dogs that were going to drag Dean to hell. He swallows for a moment, tongue caught behind his lips, and he feels a little numb. Considering how normal things had became after he had become cured, but Bucky, he’s still too wary.  
  
   His fingers can tell by the way the other trembles. Despite the other allowing him to touch the other,r Dean is still comfortable, he stills knows the signs of when Bucky becomes too uncomfortable to remain still. And he still never told, Buck.   
  
He might as well now considering he’s put up with so much of Bucky’s own nightmares and demons and not to mention he’s seen some of the men.  And his voice catches, when he speaks.Not about the time he went to hell, but the bits of hell he saw when HYDRA had ripped him from the other nestled beside him.      
  
      “I saw pieces, didn’t go through as much like you did. But I saw pieces of your existence along where the tecs dragged me. They thought they could erase the history, just made things worse. My soul, it was damned so long ago, that trying to twist someone warped like that, it just doesn’t work so well. It just makes a demon more pissed, I kept seeing red, everytime I heard someone mention you. They would laugh about it, make jokes about how the fist of hydra had become so worthless.”   
  
He pauses for a moment fingers dipping into the joint of were the metal arm and Bucky’s shoulder is. The evident uneasy in his frame and body showing on the both of them.    
  
“I wanted to slaughter most of them when you found me, but most of what I remember is tinted red, and words are blurred. I just remember wanted to kill them for talking about you in the way they did. This mark is a curse, sometimes I wish I had never taken it, I’d be better off dead, you know.” He moves his hand off the other’s shoulder, swallowing hard.  
  
   And a silence stretches for what seems like hours.


	29. Chapter 29

“Have you drank all of these bottles in one weekend?!

  


     It’s a topic not breached upon. It’s a habit not spoken about. He’s aware, he’s more than aware of what he does. How many whiskey bottles he goes though. How many he can drink without getting completely drunk, or there’s nights that he has been completely shit _faced_  but has managed himself.   
  
The drinking was to cope with the losses- losses that he didn’t explain to Bucky. Ones that were better off dead and buried, ones that were his fault. Ones that could have been stopped. He still wishes he could have saved some of them- losing jo and ellen. it hadn’t been fair, and losing sam, that had been a hit that no one could have prepared him for. And he tried everything to get his brother back even trying to strike deals, and well he can’t. So he drinks so the guilt won’t eat him alive. He misses his brother- it’s a touchy time of year for him. he can’t even bring himself to go where he buried sam and he swallows. his throat feels tight.    
  
            “it’s not your concern, did you find us a case or are you just going to hound me?”  
  
 he’s bitter and the hint of guilt can be heard in his voice. it can be heard that he doesn’t want to talk, that he wants a distraction, he wants to push barnes away.   
  
                   “barnes, i don’t want to talk about it. i think you of all  
                people would understand the demons lingering in someone’s head.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another intermission

You don’t know the hell. Not till you’ve felt it at your chapped lips. Not till you’ve heard the animal whisper in your frame of mind. Not until you’ve bared your teeth that have seen better days and are dripping with blood. 

   You used to smile. You used to step in line with a person you called a brother.  You didn’t always wake up gasping out a name that isn’t valid anymore. Screaming wasn’t always there. You used to sleep with a pistol or a knife under your sheets to give you a sense of feeling safe.

  
You still do, but the guns loaded now. And you are scared. You want to lie and tell him that ‘you’re okay’. that he saved you. he made you better but you can’t. the world doesn’t spin like that, it just falls and crumbles on it’s own axis.

       
you aren’t a hero. you’re a man struggling to find a better reason to live, other than this 'idiot’. he danced with the devil and lived, he danced with your demons that made you scream out and yell. and throw the nearest chair across the bunker. you don’t understand why he gave up so much for you.

    
 he gave up his time. he gave up being a ghost. you can’t admit it’s real. you don’t want to admit it’s real. you love him. he’s an idiot. fingers struggle against him, pound against him. and cry out. you’ve never felt this scared of being held by someone. you’ve never met someone as damaged as you.

      
 you love him, and your voice trembles when you tell him. he doesn’t say it but you know he does too. in the wake of a fire that’s burned between the two of you, and he catches your hand, pulling you aganist him. dim light from the stars from above.

    
   cradling you like a child, he loves you. and you don’t deserve how kind he is to you.  

     
 you think this is a cruel dream. but you always have fallen into his embrace. because it’s all that you’ve got left for family. 

   
  you’re in love with a man that has nothing left to give but gives you the end of the world.


	31. Chapter 31

❛ i have a hard time just forgiving, don’t think i’ll be forgetting. ❜

  


    It’s like poison across his tongue even though its already heavy and thick with blood, the way that it drags across his lower lip across the cut part of his lip. lapping at the inside of his mouth from a wound that he deserved. the injuries that linger across his body were not from anything, not from any monster under a bed.   
  
it was from the man standing looking at him in the other side of the room looking at him. and he’s as grounded as a wolf snarling at a sheep. he’s defensive and dean, dean hates it. he hates the way that bucky has been looking at him like a wounded animal. he can feel the blood still dripping on his forehead and the hurt in his bones, and the subtle shaking in his skin. he can feel the mark on his arm burning and his lungs feel like they want to scream out for  breath that feels so trapped and constricted in his lungs.    
  
   he doesn’t understand–but his body. it knows more. his mind has been locking away what it’s known. pieces and fragments about what had happened when he had been gone had been erased or even shoved under the surface. and that surface is starting to break and is at the tipping point. the way that it’s starting to slip and crumble like fragmented shards of mirrors. it crumbles somewhere between the fragmented words of a foreign tongue and admist a blackout that dean didn’t know existed from him. he wants to blame the mark- he wants to blame the damnation and whatever the fuck _hydra_ did to curse him further.    
  
    something snaps within the surface, and it drenches his blood cold. and the hit to his face is hard and blows him backward half onto his knees, considering he was hit by metal fingertips and not human ones. and it leaves him leaving a breath unspoken and heaving out lungs. and it drags at him again, that tainted _whisper_ , like another breech of programming, like another layer- another layer like they had planned this all along.   
_  
help me. HELP ME.  
  
     _he wants to scream but nothing comes out. nothing comes out at all, and it leaves him tongue tied and numb. and a body that doesn’t feel like it’s even his own anymore, he was used to being damned but this- this hurts more than anything. seeing the physical affects it’s having on the other. His fingers remain on the ground, unable to speak, air caught in his lungs.     
  
_bring him back.– NO.—_  
  
you can’t drown your demons if they know how to swim. he heaves, fingers pressing at the back of his throat, trying to cleanse himself, trying to gain control, trying to be himself. and his bones ache, everything aches down to his joints. everything aches, and burns and he wants to scream, and somewhere he does and it doesn’t process. it doesn’t process because he’s so far gone.   
  
             “Sputnik.”   
  
 it’s not being used as a trigger, it’s barely even a spoken thought. and he feels the bile and the dry heaving all over again at the gut reaction like someone punched him. It was the one word he remembered using but not the others, they’re blurred in his memory fragments. And he makes a noise at the back of his tongue.    
  
                           “Oh god, what have I done? What have I done to you?”   
  
 hell itself could answer that for both of them. he wants to erase everything, he wants to forget that events like this exist.        
  
                              _You should have left me.–_  
  
 He wants to say but instead chokes on what sounds like a sob, his mind is frayed on the hinges.   
  
         You can’t leave a man that gave you his soul.


	32. Chapter 32

❛ i wasn’t always this way! and you weren’t either. ❜

  


   it’s like nailing him on the head of a pin. he can still remember the unsettling feeling in his bones when he held a knife glinting towards alastair. he can still remember the way that his heart twisted, the way that he felt his body stiffen. his reaction to the one that had made him torture souls. of everything that HYDRA had put him through, it was nothing compared the forty years he’d had spent in hell just for the sake of his brother.   
  
   bucky’s words are not lies. as much as he’d love to say they were. they aren’t lies, he knows that both of them have been through their own hell. and dean, dean only saw glimpses of what bucky went through when hydra had gotten under his skin. dean ignores the damage for the most part, the mark of cain is the only reminder of  the evidence of even being amidst their ranks.   
  
     “hell does that to you buck. it changes the color of your blood.”   
  
 he still won’t admit hell to bucky. he still won’t tell that side of the story. parts of him have died so many times, bucky had know him within the timframe of him being willing to die. Bucky had known him before he had gone to hell, before things had been so out of hand. before he had made deals with demons. he closes his eyes for a moment.   
  
           “I can’t get the image of you falling out of my head. I keep telling myself, there’s nothing I could have done. “ He’s talking about that day. He shouldn’t even know about it, he shouldn’t even be talking about it. Bucky never actually knew that he had been _there_ , he had found the time god, and Dean had made sure there had been no evidence that Bucky had even seen him. He had made sure to make sure he had vanished without a trace.    
  
      “I’ve seen and felt hell, but watching you just fall into that abbess, every part of me wanted to just  try to stop it, but I couldn’t. It would have been so much easier if I hadn’t known you.”   
  
  It’s the first time he’s mentioned this, and he’s not going to bring it up again, and he has to look away from him.   
  
  
           Hell was thinking you were dead. Hell was losing you.


	33. Chapter 33

“You haven’t slept for days, have you?”

  


Somewhere between Kansas and Louisiana amidst a job he had fallen asleep almost behind the wheel of driving. The only reason that the pair of them weren’t dead was because of Bucky’s quicker than hell reflexes and the quick movement he had done. It really wasn’t the other’s concern, really it wasn’t. The nightmares about hell, the damnation, the fragmented whispers, the burning beneath his skin from his arm. He exhaled a breath closing his eyes for a moment.    
  
“Stop worrying about me, shouldn’t you worry   
                 about your own wound that hasn’t patched up?”


	34. Chapter 34

SENDME A ✿ AND I’LL GENERATE A NUMBER. [  
](http://evidentem.tumblr.com/post/142705844366/send-me-a-and-ill-generate-a-number)

‘’I thought I’d never see you again” hug   
  
I. it’s like time itself stood on an axis. there isn’t words, there never have been words. the discord, the ripple of events that you saw. the weight in your bones, the steady feeling of loss that had engulfed your frame but now it hits you. the weight of living, the weight of the memories. the old smell of whiskey and smoke lingering at the back of your mind. a distance echo in time.   
  
     the way that events had panned out. the way that everything had fallen. he came back to you, he came back and you don’t know what to say. you don’t know how to react, and you can feel the wet tears. you can feel your shaken breath, the tightness of your throat. your fingers grasping at a man who was supposed to be  _dead_  but lets you cling onto him like there’s noting left. you aren’t supposed to love him. but you choose to. and you’d choose him a thousand times over. 

  
         “don’t ever do that again.”  
5\. firm kiss  
  
    

II.     it’s a weight at the back of his throat. the way that everything has fallen between them tonight. between the laughter and bits of powered sugar caught between fingertips. he can still taste the sweetness on his tongue, the bits of remaining chocolate linger here besides the cheap beer (well not really that cheap when it was imported). but the both of them had been laughing, and for once it wasn’t a case. it wasn’t something with lingering death all over it.   
  
this was two boys that had been through a war. this was them being able to breathe. being able to relax. and the way that the winchester kisses the other, is more like he had when he met the other. he’s forgotten the fact bucky had been made into something because he’s just as intoxicated as he is. and the press of lips is evident.   
  
         “i never got to tell you, i love you.”     
  
its words not said, they never have been. he had merely said, your an idiot back when he knew james buchanan barnes. and he tells him now because he’s not going to lose him again. he needs to tell him because he has the right to know.


	35. Chapter 35

“we swallow our feelings, even if it means we’re unhappy forever. sounds good?”

Blow out all the candles. You are alive. You are living. Time passes you by, it flickers within cracks, you’ve been through the cracks. You’ve caused the cracks. You broke apart pieces of memories that should have never existed. You didn’t belong in his memory. You never belonged in his memories, you were caught among the echoes.   
  
   It’s a suffocating weight. Like a bad case of survivors guilt. It makes your bones ache. It makes your heart ache in a way that shouldn’t even be allowed when living. It twists and burns under your skin. It hurts, and makes you want to throw the chair across the room (which you have), and it explains the disfiguration on Bucky’s lip from the wood hitting him. Frustration and anger, and all these emotions that have been pent up since the day you saw him fall.  
  
  The anger that had struck the time god in the heart. And you spent your time thinking that the man in front of you was dead. You lived with the fact that you had killed another person that you had cared about. You had tried to let him go, you had tried to escape. But the validation of your heartstrings hurting and pulling is real. The onslaught of tears, things that haven’t happened since _Cassie_. Things that get hunters killed. God you care.   
  
You love him. You love him and you hate it. You love him and he pushes you away. You love a man with more blood on his hands than your own. You love a man that was a ghost that was nothing but a shadow. You can’t just let him go. You don’t want to let it go. And your fingers drag across his skin. Your fingers grab ahold of skin. And you’re angry. You’re angry when you press your mouth to his. It’s a disclosed known fact, that you can do this. That he’s comfortable around you. That he’s familiar. That he trusts you.  
  
But it doesn’t make it hurt any less. The way that your emotions play against his own. Forget, forget forget.  He’s an idiot, you want to say to him. He’s an idiot with every passing day.  You want to choke back that noise that escapes you when his fingers slide against you. A broken paradise really, tucked away in the bunker. You shouldn’t still be kissing him but you are. He’s letting you. He always had.  You’re in love with a man that is dead.     
  
  
      You don’t care if you attack the wolf with your own teeth. You don’t. You never had. You care too much. You always have. And it’s evident in the way that your body trembles. The way that your heart twists and jolts. The rapid sound of your own breathing, and the clack of teeth. The way that he bites your lip, leaving a trail of maroon smeared when his fingers swipe across it. His expression unreadable, looking right at you.    

                                “I love you, you idiot.”    
  
  


     Your words are scratchy and hurt. And they ache, and ache and ache. And he closes his eyes, he closes them. And he can feel shaking hands run over his bitten lip, and he can feel his blood hot in his veins. He can feel the way that his body reacts to such a gentle touch. Such a gentle thing for a man than has killed hundreds. And your voice doesn’t want to work, it doesn’t. And you don’t want to speak anymore you just rather keep kissing him.   
  
  
                                       “We swallow this, and it’s going to eat us both alive.”

   His head rests on the other’s forehead, slumped down. And he can feel the way that Bucky’s fingers curl around him. He can feel the way that the other responds to him. It’s a rarity how close either of them are to one another. It almost never happens, they’ve learned not to gravitate this close until the tension kills them. He can hear the soft breathing, feel the way that the metal fingers rub over his skin on his neck trying to soothe him.       
  
  
                                  “I promised you, I promised I’d see you again.   
                                                    I just didn’t know, you’d have this meaning to me.”  
  
                     And he feels the wet tears, he feels them. But, the ex-assassin filters around him, slips around him, coils around him. Holds his body in a way that his brother used to hug him. And the cracks slip, everything slips. Everything falls apart and aches, and Dean lets out this small noise from his lips that sounds like he’s a dying man. But he’s sobbing against him. He’s crying and aching and doesn’t want to let him go.   
  
  
                   And it falls into that dead silence of Dean just being held there,  
                          no words spoken. it’s for the better really. It really is.


	36. Chapter 36

“ Stop lying with those words.”

  


      It’s been a bad day. It’s been a bad case. It’s been a bad week. Between Bucky’s episodes of memories and flashbacks and his programming, whatever HYDRA did to him coming into light combined with Dean’s guilt, everything is a wreck. Everything is a clusterfuck of a whirlwind that makes everything spin.  Dean isn’t going to quite get over the damn fact that Bucky sold him his soul when he was a demon to reverse the serum effects.  
  
  He’s still not forgiving himself despite the fact that the ex-assassin has become someone better. That he’s more human that he’s just as easily wounded as Dean. The elder Winchester has to let a breath escape him, his injuries are rather nasty. James had gotten to him after the vampire had almost mauled him half to death. He’s got blood on his lip and temple and his head aches, he really doesn’t want to deal with another fight. He doesn’t want to deal with another night of them bickering.   
  
    He’s seen James react so many times poorly that it hurts. It’s a physical reminder that James’s hell is so much worse than actual hell. That Dean can bury his under a bottle of bourbon and whiskey and then he’s okay. Maybe Bucky’s noticed, maybe the man that used to be a ghost realized how much guilt Dean’s got. How much he hates himself for losing people, how much he hates himself for what happened to the man beside him.  
  
      He leans against the car, soaked to the bone. There maybe dried blood on him but he’s standing outside in a middle of a field next to his car, in the middle of pouring rain. He had chosen to stop when the weather had been downright bad, heavy heavy downpour and not the pretty kind. And he wants to just avoid Barnes, wants to tune him out.      
  
            “What would you like me to say? That I don’t feel guilty Barnes? That I’m happy with my choices. That I’m supposed to not feel guilty for the fact you can suddenly bleed and heel over wasted now. That you’re so human. That you don’t get that a gunshot can kill you, that what you could take in the past, you can’t anymore. That I worry that you’re going to be reckless and get killed. I’m not your godamn parent and it’s not my place. I rather lie to you than just say, I feel guilt everyday for the fact I watched you fall.”    
  
       Things are quiet after that, nothing but the rain between the two of them and if Dean was crying you’d never know by the heavy downpour.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sleeping with a demon has its costs

 [SEND “SLEEP SEX” FOR MY MUSE WAKING UP YOURS BY FUCKING THEM.](http://evidentem.tumblr.com/post/143348744756/send-sleep-sex-for-my-muse-waking-up-yours-by) 

      His flesh was burning beneath the skin. The wake of the flames leave something primal beneath the surface. Something dangerous, something that was more than just an attraction in his blood. Something more than just a thickened heat in veins. The way that it pools out and ensnares the senses, and leaves others gasping for a breath. But then again the taint of sulfur and ash remain, the other knows that he’s not human.  
  
 It boils down to the cuff around his wrist, branded with a devil’s trap to tell him that. The other one linked to Bucky’s right hand, giving them space but just barely so. The length of the chain short but there’s still enough movement. And the ex soldier had known what he was getting into the moment he had dragged Dean back into the bunker the way he was. The instruments for curing were evident within the room, but he had made deals. He had struck a deal with the devil residing in the elder Winchester even if it was his own blackened soul.  
  
    And perhaps that explained the other’s behavior leaving himself like this. Exposed for the other despite the fact his eyes could shift to black. Bucky had this streak within him that was self-destructive it just never showed right away. He had his own ways with coping with things, this kid was like a hook line and sinker to the other. And the demons lips curled, almost a wicked snarl etched onto his features. Fingers clicking open a lock without stirring the other from a small paperclip hidden by the beside, hooking the cuffs to the bedframe, not that Barnes couldn’t break them if needed.     
  
   But the heat lingers in a smoldering wake that doesn’t just simmer it burns beneath. It leaves a hot trail of something. It leaves his bones aching and a fire casted that strikes when his fingers slip across the flesh. Pressing into tender soft spots that are exposed on the sleeping solider, the man doesn’t even stir. It’s as if the sleeping puts him in a coma like trace, only small soft noises escaping him as Dean presses his fingers across more spots spreading the warmth to the other.   
  
    The demon is almost quick across the skin. Leaving imprints of teeth and reddened flesh. The way that color blooms across new human skin, that will last for days instead of just hours. He’s going to bruise and mark the flesh as much as he can. Not that he’ll remember doing this after he’s been cured. And the steady blooming color in his wake remains, fingers sliding lower and lower avoiding his actual genitals and slipping inside. It’s been that way since he got back. Don’t touch him like that that, just fuck him. He likes that, doesn’t mind the biting either.   
  
  Fingers pressing into spots unseen by others, drawing small noises from a man that is only beginning to stir, still so sleep ridden. The way that he falls apart, twitching beneath the touch, the way that his limbs react in a slow arch. A slow arch that shows the way that his body reacts, the way that his head falls to the side, a low moan from his lips, even in a sleepy state. And Dean doesn’t waste time, slipping inside. He doesn’t waste time even as the other jolts awake.   
  
Even  when he hears the clicking of a chain at the steel headboard. The clinking and clicking of the handcuffs and the tug, and the hiss that escapes from the other’s mouth muffled from Dean’s hand around it. He can feel the other squiring on his stomach, body confused at the entrance of someone’s dick inside him but at the same time he wants more. And Dean can see that in the way his body eases into the touch.      
  
               “Shhh, feel that don’t you Barnes? Pain doesn’t go away  
                                  as quick as it used to, keep making those noises.”  
  
   Dean lasts a long time fucking him like this, right out of this sleepy state, until there’s the sound of a chain breaking and Dean’s rolled onto his back. A smug curl of the lips remaining despite what he’s done to Barnes, but the other never said no. Never said stop, and he knows he other liked it, even as he sticks a syringe of his own blood into Dean’s arm.    
  
He’ll forget about this anyway, this is Bucky’s   
                      matter to deal with, and his tradeoff for letting Dean take his soul.


	38. Chapter 38

“Think I just remembered something.”

  


     He’s standing here in the bloody ruins. He’s standing here amidst a slaughter of people that is above his level. The people that have been standing here, the dead that are here, they are not monsters. They are _men_. They are men that have broken, that have brainwashed, that have corrupted, that have done so much damage to the two of them. These are the men that were within HYDRA.   
  
   That were the ones that left Dean bloody like this and left Bucky with wounds that are not imaginable by anyone. And Dean he can feel the blood on his temple, on his lips, the way that it’s dried and the way that his own frame is shaking beside the solider. Sometimes the memories aren’t exactly good what he remembers. As it was someone had said a trigger, and Bucky had nearly killed  him even if he was down to Dean’s level now and human due to the incident when Dean had been a demon. He exhales a quiet breath, fingers pulling his jacket closer, everything hurts right now. His frame is riddled with bruises from the other.     
  
          “are you okay?”    
  
It’s less about the memory this time. he almost just died because of _bucky,_ he’s still pretty shaken up by that fact. he loves him yes, but there’s always going to be that threat, that level of bucky being something he’s not. there’s always that darkness in him that HYDRA created, and it chills Dean to the bone.     
  
         “I mean it’s great you remembered,   
                       but Buck I think I need medical attention. I have a set of fractured ribs.” 

He’s not going to say that Barnes did it, he’s just going to blame it on HYDRA blame it on the fact the other blacked out, that it couldn’t be avoided. the other was a product of war and a weapon that men had created, and sometimes, like now dean realizes he can’t change that. can’t change the fact he could almost die by just being around the other.


	39. Chapter 39

  
(64. Our muses being the sole survivors of a bus/train/plane crash.)

      Did he mention he hates _flying_? Did he mention he really hates flying. That he’s never doing it again after this. Scratch that, never is _forever_.  Sam used to joke with him about the fact he was scared about plane crashes. But look at Dean’s luck now. He swears that he’s lost about nine cat lives living with Barnes. He’s seen death, been dead before but the amount of near death experiences that happen when Bucky is in the same room. It makes his own seem like accidents.     
  
    And accidents don’t happen accidentally.  And some part of him even regrets stepping onto this plane, a lot of him regrets it honestly. A lot of him hates the fact that Barnes even talked him into this. And now he’s curled into the other’s shoulder, nestled into him, holding onto him for dear life. The way that his breath is coming out is not _fine_. The way that Dean’s body is not only in shock but also in a panic attack is not _fine_.  He also doesn’t process what had happened when the plane crash had happened.   
  
He just knows that Bucky had grabbed ahold of him and tucked him into him. Which explains why the metal hand is tucked in a death grip around him and Dean’s shaking against the other. He’s never flying  again. Never in his life.  And it’s bad enough that he can’t even tell if he’s broken anything, he can’t tell if he’s in pain because he can hardly breathe like he’s supposed to. He just knows that he’d be possibly be dead if it wasn’t for the fact that Barnes had wrapped around him while they were bracing for impact.   
  
 Somewhere in the back of Dean’s mind, he knows God hates him. He can feel slightly the cut on his lip, and  the one on his forehead, but they’re small and once his breathing settles he can feel a heavy rooted pain in his ribs. It’s always his _fucking ribs_. He closes his eyes for a moment breathing in the fact Bucky is still beside him, he’s not shaking. He’s more than likely seen a lot of this in his lifetime compared to Dean. Bucky knows how to _survive_  shit like this, not to mention cause it.  He can feel the press of Buck’s hand on his back, and the way that he slowly uncurls Dean from him. 

His words are quiet and soft. And simple when he speaks to Dean. And god, if anything good came out of this, it’s the fact that Barnes isn’t one of the people that burned alive, Barnes isn’t one of the people that had been roasted or killed. Dean doesn’t think he could live through that again, seeing Bucky die. His fingers are still trembling when Bucky helps him to his feet. And he feels the crack in his bones, hears it, and it hurts, it downright _hurts_ to breathe.  He’s pretty sure one of his lungs got hit with a piece of bone, a piece of his ribs. And his fingers gasp around Bucky this time for a support, trying not to scream out from the white hot pain that laces through his body.    
  
    “For the record, you can carry my ass to  wherever the hell we’re getting treated. This is why I don’t fly. And don’t you dare lie to me and say you’re _fine_.”   
  
  But he is surprised however when Barnes chooses to carry him back, not even seeming to wince from whatever pain he’s in, not that Dean has time to notice, he falls into darkness before he can spit anything else out.


	40. Chapter 40

❛ you’re selfish. quit pretending you’re anything more. ❜

  


     “I’m selfish? I never had to let you back in here. I didn’t have to let you make this your  _home_ . Hell I could have just let HYDRA find you. But you know what I couldn’t live with that fact.  You ever think your the one being selfish. You keep running. You don’t think I don’t know about your little secret. About the fact you got me to take away that  _serum_ . You don’t think I didn’t notice. You’re just as selfish as me. You let my demons change you for what reason? What makes you so eager to die?”   
  
   He’s shaking. He’s shaking and he’s angry. He’s pissed. He hasn’t been this distraught since Sam had jumped into the pit with Lucifer. He’s so angry. He’s so mad at the other, he’s seeing red in his vision. Fingers curled at his side. The bitterness heavy in the air, he can feel his blood boiling. He’s shaking and angry, and just  _vivid._ .   
  
    “I’ve given so much up. You think you know me when you don’t. I’ve been to _hell_. Barnes. It’s not the same as yours, hell no ones is/ But I’ve seen pieces of what you went though. I’ve given up my own soul so my brother didn’t _die._ Don’t you dare tell me everything I’ve done is selfish. You don’t have any idea what it’s like to see people you love die over and over again. The only thing you’ve sacrificed is the people you didn’t know. The people you assassinated. That you barely even remember. I should have left you. I could of left you to HYDRA. But my guilt would have eaten me alive. You don’t know a godamn thing about me, I’ve lost everything to _hunting.”  
_  
He punches the other square in the face. It’s an impulse reaction but he doesn’t care. He’s so angry, and vivid, that he could beat the shit out of the other and not care.


	41. Chapter 41

  
"RESTLESSNESS LEADS TO A DANGEROUS KIND OF FUN."  
  


                                                   SMILES OVER THE RIM OF HIS GLASS, WHISKEY SLICK LIPS AND THAT INSINUATION SORT OF CHARMS HIM, SORT OF TRILLS A THRILL DOWN HIS SPINE, PULLING HIS ATTENTION LIKE SO MUCH RED THREAD. TONGUE PRESSES AGAINST THE BACKS OF HIS TEETH AND HE’S LEANING, LEANING, TIPPING OVER INTO THE OTHER’S ATMOSPHERE, ENTHRALLED AND HALF - DRUNK. EAGER, MAYBE, IN THE CURVE OF HIS SHOULDERS, THE SET OF HIS HIPS. OPEN, INVITING, SOME LANGUID PLAY AT PREY THAT HE NEVER QUITE EXCELS AT, THOUGH WELL ENOUGH THE GAME IS STILL WORTHWHILE. WELL ENOUGH TO DRAW EYES, AND THAT’S THE POINT.     **“** WELL I’M PLENTY RESTLESS, **”**    SOFT SYLLABLES, ROUGHLY DRAWN, AND HE KNOWS HOW IT SEEMS AT ODDS WITH THE YOUTHFULNESS THAT PLAYS AT THE CORNER OF HIS JAW, THE SET OF HIS HAIR. DOES THESE THINGS WITH INTENT.     **“** SO THE REST IS UP TO YOU.  **”**


	42. Chapter 42

  
"YOU’RE JUST THE SHELL OF THE BOY THAT YOU’VE BEEN, AND YOU’RE DYING, I CAN FEEL IT."  
  


                                                   SMILES, AND IT IS BITTER AND BRIGHT AND NOT REALLY MUCH OF A SMILE AT ALL ; SHARP EDGED AS ANY KNIFE BLADE AGAINST THE OTHER’S THROAT. LETS HIS FINGERTIPS TRACE THE SHELL OF HIS EAR, SOME ABSENT KIND OF GESTURE, TAPPING SOFTLY. GENTLENESS ISN’T GENTLE, HERE, THAT INHERENT KINDNESS FURTHER SCRAPED FROM HIS BONES EVERY TIME THE DEMON OPENS HIS MOUTH. LEAVES HIM ALL TWISTED UP AND FUCKING _tired_ , A PERVASIVE WEARINESS THAT’S NEVER QUITE LEFT HIM, NOT SINCE HYDRA, NOT SINCE FUCKING _Italy_ , WAY BACK WHEN, HIS FIRST REAL TASTE OF WAR. WORDS THAT JUST ADD WEIGHT TO HIS SHOULDERS, POUNDS AND POUNDS AND POUNDS.     **“** I THINK,  **”**    HE SAYS, VOICE CREAKING LIKE SO MUCH ROTTED WOOD, LIKE THE GIVEAWAY OF HIS STRUCTURE IS INEVITABLE, SHOULD BE, AND YET,   **“** I THINK _you’re_ REAL DAMN EAGER TO BE ALONE AGAIN. ALL BY YOURSELF. POOR THING, IT’S HARD TO _pretend_ ALL THE TIME, ISN’T IT ? LIKE ALL THIS _power_ MAKES YOU SOMETHIN’, LIKE YOU’RE TOUGH SHIT ‘CAUSE THE DEVIL LETS YOU FUCK REAL HARD ———— LOT EASIER TO BE NOTHING IF THERE’S NOBODY AROUND.  **”**    HIS FINGERS PRESS AGAINST THE OTHER’S JAW, A PAT ; TAP TAP TAP, ONE TWO THREE.     **“** BUCK THE FUCK UP, KID.  **”**    HE PUSHES THE SYRINGE IN, EASY AS ANYTHING, TO REPLACE THE SMILE ON HIS SKIN.


	43. Chapter 43

  
"YOU DRAW BLOOD JUST TO TASTE IT." ( DEMON DEAN OH YES)  
  


                                                   HE SMILES AND IT IS SICKLY SWEET. IT IS A LIE. HIS BONES VIBRATE UNDER SKIN, MUSCLE PULLED TOO TIGHT ———— HE FEELS, SO OFTEN, LIKE AN INTRUDER IN HIS OWN BODY, SO CLOSE TO CRAWLING OUT. LIKE AN ANIMAL LURKING IN HIS THROAT, CLAWS BEHIND HIS TEETH, WAITING, WAITING. WONDERS IF THIS DEMON HERE WOULD LIKE TO CRAWL DOWN, TOO, HALF THINKS TO UNHINGE HIS JAW IN INVITATION : WOULD YOU LIKE TO TEAR ME APART FROM THE INSIDE OUT ?

                                                   HE SMILES AND IT IS ROWS OF TEETH. IT IS NOT A SMILE. HE’S PUSHING FINGERTIPS AGAINST THE OTHER’S THROAT, HARDER, HARDER, HOPING TO LEAVE BRUISES LIKE LANDMARKS ACROSS HIS TENDERED SKIN, HOPING TO PUSH RIGHT THROUGH. HE’S HOPING THE OTHER WILL STOP HIM, PIN HIM DOWN, ROLL HIM OVER. ANYTHING TO COMBAT THIS RAWNESS ; TO PROLONG IT, TO HELP HIM FINISH RIPPING THESE SEAMS, TEAR HIM ASUNDER. GOD, OH GOD, PRY OPEN HIS RIBS AND PULL HIM RIGHT OUT. ROCKS HIS HIPS, DECEPTIVELY GENTLE, SOME HALF FORMED THOUGHT OF FUCKING HIMSELF DOWN ON THE OTHER ANYWAY, BECAUSE HE CAN, BECAUSE THIS PROCESS HAS CULTIVATED HIS CRUELTY IN GRAND MEASURE. AND IT’S TRUE, IT’S TRUE : THERE ARE TIMES WHEN IT’S NECESSARY, WHEN THERE MUST BE A WAY FOR BUCKY’S BLOOD TO FIND IT’S WAY INTO THE OTHER’S VEINS, AN UNGENTLE PURGE. OFTEN ENOUGH, THOUGH, IT’S PURPOSELESS. OFTEN ENOUGH IT’S SIMPLY TO WATCH OTHER BRUISE AND BLEED AND HEAL IN RAPID SUCCESSION, JUST TO WATCH HIS SKIN KNIT ITSELF BACK TOGETHER. SEAMLESS, SCAR-LESS, TISSUE AND VEIN. HE COULD STICK HIS TONGUE INTO THE WOUND, ASK HIM, _ask him_. WHAT DIFFERENCE WOULD IT MAKE, ANYMORE : THERE’S A HUNDRED STRANGERS’ BLOOD IN HIS TEETH, ON HIS HANDS, COATING HIS GODDAMN BONES IN SOME VISCOUS, PERMANENT LAYER. WHAT’S A LITTLE MORE ?     **“** GIRL’S GOTTA HAVE _fun_ , **”**    DRAWN OUT, HONEY SLOW. HIS VOICE IS LOW AND WRECKED AS THE REST OF HIM, ANYMORE, ANY GIVEN MOMENT. LIPS CURL FURTHER, BUT IT’S A SNARL NOW, IF IT’S ANYTHING, A CONDESCENDING SHOW OF TEETH. PUSHES HIS PALM UPWARD, CLIMBING THE COLUMN OF HIS NECK, AND USES HIS THUMB TO TIP THE OTHER’S HEAD BACK AND BACK AND BACK, FORCING HIM TO BARE HIS THROAT.     **“** WHAT’S THE MATTER DARLIN’, CAN’T HANDLE A LITTLE BITE ?  **”**


	44. Chapter 44

  
"HOW LONG DID I GIVE YOU? WHEN I WAS A DEMON, BUCK. WHAT DID I GIVE YOU? YOU CAN'T JUST PUSH THIS UNDER A BRIDGE. WHATEVER DEAL YOU MADE, IT AFFECTED BOTH OF US. CAN'T YOU TRUST ME? I'M NOT GOING TO TRY TO KILL YOU." BUT YOU DID DEAN, YOU ALMOST KILLED HIM BECAUSE HYDRA HAD YOU UNDER LOCK AND KEY WHEN YOU WERE A DEMON. THOSE ARE LITTLE FACTS, HE'S NOT TELLING YOU. HE CHOSE TO GIVE YOU HIS BLOOD. HE CHOSE TO BE MORTAL, EVEN IF IT DAMNED YOU TO LOSE HIM.  
  


                                                  **“** YOU COULD, **”**    HE SAYS, AND IT’S SUDDEN, MANIC. HE’S ANGRY ; HE’S ANGRY AND HE’S SO, SO _tired_ OF THIS ———— THE PRYING, THE WAY HE TRIES TO MAKE YOU SWALLOW HIS ACRID GUILT, THE WAY YOU’RE SO EAGER TO. BUCKY SMILES, AND IT’S ALL TEETH, ROWS AND ROWS, SHARK - LIKE.     **“** YOU _could_ , **”**    AGAIN, EMPHASIS, LOUDER AND BRIGHTER AND ACHING. HE WANTS TO PUT HIS HANDS ON HIM, WANTS TO SINK INTO OR PRY APART. PUSH HIM AGAINST THE WALL AND CRAWL DOWN HIS THROAT. _try it_ , HE THINKS, AND _please_. WANTS TO LAUGH, MAYBE, OR SWALLOW HIS TONGUE ; FEELS LIKE HE’S BUBBLING OVER, SPILLING PAST HIS EDGES.

                                                  **“** YOU DIDN’T _give_ ME SHIT,  **”**    AND IT’S NOT A LIE, TECHNICALLY. IT’S _not_ , AND HE’S LETTING THAT ANGER POOL UNDER HIS TONGUE ; HE WANTS TO STOP HAVING THIS CONVERSATION.     **“** YOU’RE NOT SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT AS TO BE THE _one person_ RESPONSIBLE FOR MY RUIN.  **”**    HIS LIP CURLS, AND MOSTLY, THAT _is_ A LIE ———— HE’S BEEN IN A PERPETUAL STATE OF DEVASTATION SINCE THE FORTIES, CAN’T DRINK WHISKEY WITHOUT THINKING OF THE INSIDE OF HIS MOUTH, WITHOUT _wanting_ IN THE HOLLOW SPACES OF HIS BONES. HE PUSHES HIS THUMB JUST AT THE EDGE OF DEAN’S MOUTH, NOT QUITE GENTLE.   **“** YOU’RE NOT THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE, AND I’M FUCKING CAPABLE OF MAKING DECISIONS.  **”**


	45. Chapter 45

  
“HOW DID YOU GET THIS?”  
  


                                                  HE SMILES, AN UNKINDNESS, A CURL OF LIPS AND SHOW OF TEETH AND HE IS PRESSING HIM BACK, BACK, BACK, PALM SPREAD WIDE JUST A THE BASE OF HIS NECK ; A BASTARDIZATION OF INTIMACY, OR MAYBE THE ONLY KIND OF INTIMACY HE KNOWS HOW TO SHOW, ANYMORE, THUMB DIGGING INTO THE HOLLOW OF HIS CLAVICLE. LIKE PUSHING HIS FINGERS UP UNDER THE SKIN, CLOSER, CLOSER, HALF THINKS OF CRAWLING DOWN HIS THROAT. LIKES THE IDEA OF SETTLING LIKE SMOKE BEHIND HIS TEETH ———— AT LEAST IT WOULD BE _familiar_.

                                                  DOES NOT SAY : ‘ DON’T YOU REMEMBER ? ‘ THOUGH THE SENTIMENT CURLS ACHING UNDER HIS TONGUE. CAUSTIC. SWALLOWS, REFLEXIVELY, ONCE, TWICE, AND HE’S SETTLING HIS HIPS DOWN AGAINST THE OTHER, SOME PUZZLE PIECE THING, SOME PATTERN OF SKIN ; MAKES HIS THIGHS A BRACKET.     **“** YOU.  **”**    HE CHOOSES TO SAY INSTEAD, A PALE COLORED REPLY, LIKE SO MUCH BONE. IT SPLINTERS ON HIS TONGUE, A TRUTH. HE’S PUSHING HIS PALM UP AND UP AND UP, HE’S PUSHING HIS PALM TO CRADLE THE OTHER’S JAW, TO FORCE HIM TO LOOK ANYWHERE BUT AT THE LATTICE WORK OF DAMAGE THAT HAS CARVED HOME ON BUCKY’S SKIN OVER THE YEARS, FROM THE SILVER THIN SCAR THAT CURLS ‘ROUND HIS RIGHT SHOULDER LIKE AN EPAULET, LIKE A GODDAMN BEACON FOR HOW GRACEFULLY IT HEALED. PUSHES HIS THUMB JUST AT THE HINGE, A TEASE, OR A THREAT, OR SOME SOFT SIMMERING IN - BETWEEN JUST TO WATCH THOSE LASHES FLUTTER. HE FEELS SHARP UNDER SCRUTINY, HIS RIBS PRIED OPEN.     **“**  YOUR AIM’S SHIT.  **”**    IT DOESN’T FALL LIGHTLY, DOESN’T KNOW IF HE EVEN INTENDED TO SUCK THE VENOM FROM THE UNDERTONE AT ALL. IT WEIGHS HIS SPINE DOWN, AND MOSTLY, HE LETS IT. TIPS HIS HEAD TO WATCH THE OTHER, LAZY, PREDATORY, TONGUE PRESSING AT THE EDGE OF HIS MOUTH.     **“** ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU’LL STOP ASKIN’ DUMBASS QUESTIONS.  **”**


	46. Chapter 46

  
"YOU MADE A DEAL. BUCK, WHAT WAS THE COST? DID YOU PLAN ON TELLING ME OR WERE YOU JUST GOING TO LET ME BELIEVE IT HAD BEEN HYDRA? WHO DID YOU MAKE THE DEAL WITH? DON'T LIE, I KNOW YOU. YOU'VE BEEN DIFFERENT EVER SINCE--." HE DOESN'T SAY IT, DOESN'T WANT TO SAY IT BUT ITS THERE. THE THOUGHT, EVER SINCE HE CAME BACK AND WAS CURED BY BUCKY'S BLOOD.  
  


                                                  CURLS HIS LIP TO BARE TEETH AND IT IS CRACKING, CRACKING, THIN BREAKS ALONG HIS PORCELAIN MOUTH ———— HE IS SO AWARE OF HIS BODY, NOW, AND THERE IS A PART OF HIM THAT THINKS THIS IS BACKWARDS ;  THAT IF ANYTHING HE SHOULD BE DULLED OR DISTANT OR HALF - REMOVED FROM HIMSELF, A SEPARATION FROM SENSES. BUT THIS IS NEW, AND IN HIS NEWNESS HE IS RAW, FRESH PUCKERED FLESH TRYING TO FORM A SCAR. HIS BONES HAVE TO RELEARN HOW TO NOT STRIKE AT EACH OTHER LIKE MATCHES.     **“** YOU CAN’T EVEN FUCKING SAY IT, **”**    AND AT LEAST HIS _choler_ HAS REMAINED IN TACT, TUCKED UP JUST UNDER HIS TONGUE ; SOME RED THREAD THAT HAS FOLLOWED HIM UP FROM YOUTH, SURE AS ANYTHING,     **“** AND YOU THINK YOU’RE GONNA DEMAND ANSWERS ?  **”**

                                                  MOLARS PRESS AGAINST THE SOFT SKIN OF HIS CHEEK, DIG TO BURY HARSHER THINGS. THE TRUTH IS : HE’S CONTENT TO LET THE OTHER THINK WHATEVER STORIES ARE EASIEST TO SWALLOW ———— FOR A MAN IN THE VEIN OF BUSINESS HE IS, HE’S STARTLINGLY DEPENDENT ON TANGIBLE ENEMIES. BUCKY WILL LET HIM HAVE THAT, AND IT SERVES SOME GRANDER PURPOSE, TOO. TWO BIRDS, ONE STONE. HE SMILES ; IT’S NOT A KINDNESS, REALLY. HE’S HARDLY EVEN TRYING. PUSHES HIS TONGUE AGAINST HIS INCISORS, SOME IDLE THING, AND SINCE THERE ARE TRUTHS PUSHING CLOSE TO HIS SURFACE, SAYS :     **“** IT DIDN’T COST A GODDAMN THING. **”**    OR, AT LEAST, NOT ANYTHING HE WASN’T WILLING TO ENTHUSIASTICALLY CARVE AWAY HIMSELF. THIS ? THIS IS NOTHING. THIS IS EASY.


	47. Chapter 47

  
❝ I THINK I’M GONNA BURN IN HELL. ❞  
  


 

>   
> 
> 
>    IT’S DISCORDS OF DISCONNECTIONS OF FRAGMENTS, THE SUBTLE WAKE OF FIRE. THE BURNING THAT DWINDLES DOWN TO BEING EATEN ALIVE. THAT SUFFOCATING ACHING NEED AT THE BASE OF YOUR BONES THAT IS PRIMAL. THE WAY THAT YOUR BONES ACHE WITH EVERY TOUCH, AND EVERY WAKING MOMENT IS A _sin_. YOU ARE ALIVE BUT TAINTED, YOU HAVE TAINTED EVERYTHING YOU TOUCHED.  
>   
>       THE WAKE OF CUTS AMONG BONE, FLESH BEING TORN APART AND BROKEN. IT’S ALL A BLURRED LINE ISN’T IT? THE BORDERS OF HEAVEN AND HELL. PLEASURE AND PAIN. THE POISON THAT CREEPS THROUGH HUMAN VEINS AND EATS THE FLESH ALIVE AND LEAVES IT TO BURN BENEATH THE SKIN. BLACKENED SLITS STARING AT THE SOLDIER THAT HAS A METAL HAND WRAPPED TIGHT AROUND HIS THROAT.    
>   
>     “YOU WON’T DO IT. SOLDIER. NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU’D LIKE TO-”   
>   
>  HE WHEEZES, THE RUSH BURNING UNDER HIS LUNGS. THE WAY THAT THE ITCH TRICKLES IN HIS VEINS, THE DIZZINESS THAT ANY HUMAN WOULD GET IS SO MUCH MORE TO A DEMON THAT IS IN THE PROCESS OF BEING CURED BUT HE’S A STRONG ONE ALL THANKS TO EVENTS THAT WORKED IN BOTH THEIR FAVORS. HIS FREE HAND DIGS INTO BARNES’S HIP, LEAVING STRAY MARKS. THE CHOKING NOISE RECEDING WHEN BARNES LOOSENS HIS GRIP ONLY SLIGHTLY.   
>   
>           “WE ALL KNOW YOU BELONG IN HELL. YOU’VE KILLED, YOU’VE MURDERED. AND YOU REMEMBER ALL OF IT, MAYBE YOU WERE EVEN AWARE OF IT.” HE CAN FEEL THE PRESS OF THE FINGERS ACROSS HIS THROAT AND DARKENED LAUGHTER ESCAPES DESPITE THE TIGHTENING OF FINGERS AND THE WAY THAT HIS BREATH HITCHES. HE COULD MOVE HIM OFF OF HIM IN SECONDS IF HE WANTED TO. FINGER SHAPED PRINTS ARE CAUGHT AS BRUISES ON DEAN’S NECK.    
>   
>          “THERE’S SOME PRIMAL PART OF YOU THAT THINKS YOU DESERVE THIS. THAT YOU DESERVE TO BURN ALIVE BECAUSE YOU RECALL ALL OF IT. BECAUSE YOU DON’T DESERVE TO BE SAVED, THAT YOU RATHER BE HERE DAMNED AND CAUGHT BETWEEN A DEMON THAT IS SOMEONE YOU LOVE BUT HE’D NEVER DO THIS TO YOU. HE’D NEVER BREAK YOU IN THIS WAY, FEEL THE WAY YOU MOVE WHEN EVERYTHING YOU’VE THOUGHT ABOUT IS SAID OUTLOUD. YOU WANT TO BURN ALIVE BECAUSE THAT’S THE ONLY THING THAT KEEPS YOU FROM DROWNING. IT’S THE REASON YOU HAVEN’T STUCK MORE BLOOD INTO ME. YOU LIKE THAT FACT YOU CAN BE BROUGHT TO YOUR KNEES.”    
>   
>      TAINT SLIPS FROM BONE IN A HUSHED FLUID MOVEMENT, FROM A CHOKING GRIP AROUND DEAN’S THROAT, TO DEAN’S FINGERS TANGLED HARD INTO HAIR, FORCING THE OTHER TO KNEEL, AND SUCK AT HIS DICK. CORRUPT POWER GAMES AS ALWAYS. THE WAY THAT HE PULLS INT OTHER DEEPER INTO HIS GASP, LETTING HIM CHOKE FROM TIME TO TIME, BUT THE REAL KICKER IS THE BLADE FLAT ACROSS HIS NECK. AND THE WORDS BEING CHOSEN TO COX HIM INTO WHAT HE DESIRES. IT’S CORRUPT AND FUCKED UP TO MENTION HIS PAST, TO TREAT HIM MORE LIKE THE SOLDIER THAT HE WAS BLED INTO BUT DEMONS DON’T CARE, THEY NEVER HAD.     
>   
>                            “I THINK YOU’RE GONNA LIKE IT IN HELL, YOU’VE GOT ME.” 


	48. Chapter 48

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> non-con/dubcon warning

 

❝ clean me off, i’m so dirty babe. ❞

  It’s an echo of intoxication of the highest degree. Despite the fact that everything reeks of death and sulfur. The way that any mortal would have the hairs being raised on the back of their neck. The way that control and power works, the way that fear sinks beneath the skin and pulls. And pulls and pulls until you’re caught in a web. But this game had been different, the game of cat and mouse had been different. Because the men that had sent him here to catch Barnes had been the same men that had broken the other man to begin with.   
  
   The steady paradox of corrupt power games and a deal. A deal that was more than just a cost of a soul. It was the tainting of demon blood in veins if allowed to be done, it was a purifying of  blood once the demon allowed it.  The subtle weight and pull, the way that the world crumbled when it was just the two of them. Dean wasn’t just the hunter he knew right now. He was a  _weapon_  a monster that they had created.    
  
    That the moment a wounded soldier had walked into the bunker was the moment everything had changed. HYDRA still wanted their soldier, what was left of it. Cut off one head and two more shall appear, it was always the same. Even if it was pulled out of a nightmare, pulled from the taint of Dean’s soul from hell. 

The way that fingers curl around the metal of the dagger and let it sink into the skin. Watching the way that crimson droplets from and pool from the open pours on the skin, the way that blood collects and catches and then slips down from the pale skin. The demon knows what game he’s playing. He knows exactly what he’s playing. This is what Barnes had asked for. He had given him a trade, humanity as along as whatever remained of a human Dean never remembered or recalled this.  
  
  And so the blood slips from the blade staining everything red. Quite frankly the ex-assassin is covered in bloody marks from the knife sinking much further into the skin than a normal human could ever take. It’s the evidence that the demon that is made from Dean Winchester’s soul was tortured and corrupted in hell more so than HYDRA could ever do. It leaves a number of lacerations and the bleeding stains everything or would have but Barnes is bare. He allowed this to happen, even despite the fact that the demon had restored the metal limb. But that had been after he had fucked him, and it hadn’t been exactly pleasant.   
  
 So here they stand. Dean letting the blade slip across the skin, letting him mark and mare the skin. Hearing the soft exclaim of a hiss as it slips nearly into the bone. No matter how well someone trains a man to be a ghost, a breaking point is always there. But it doesn’t help when the pain is a blurred line with pleasure and that part of the other enjoys this. It’s a blurred line that sinks past what either of them could imagine. The weight of Barnes’s dotags heavy on the demons neck, a rich irony really considering they weren’t taken.   
  
        “I don’t think you’ve been blessed enough to be clean. Let alone bled out enough.”   
  
 The blade twists into the bone harshly, soaking the blade with the crimson blood. And he can feel the other, he can feel how the other trembles, but doesn’t scream. He doesn’t scream. No the screaming only pertained to the wipes. The way that the blade curves into his skin, the way that it sinks into the flesh and cuts him. The way that the raw pain feels. The other wants this, he thinks that he deserves it, in some masochistic way.    
  
And it’s why the demon has given the choice of the deal. He loves the fact he can rip this man apart from the inside out. The fact that he can dig deep wounds into him and not a sound is heard. And there’s evidence that the other likes the pain, by the increased heartrate and by the soft noise that hitches at the back of his throat. The way that his fingers curve into the blood and press and curve down his spine.        
  
                           “Let’s see if I can get you to scream for me, _sweetheart_.”    
  
There’s long bleeding stretches were Bucky’s metal hand digs into Dean’s shoulders and back, and the amount of blood littering both their frames would be sickening to anyone that saw the pair of them. But it is merely candy to the demons lips and he merely presses inside the other harder, feeling the way that the other makes him bleed, and his skin burns. Burns from an ache that isn’t just lust, burns from something more. Burns from the little syringe pressed into his arm, that the ghost of a man managed to fill with his blood long before this had started.   
  
             And it rips the demon from the inside out, lips meeting the others in an aggressive movement that slides him inside further past the blood, and he hears Barnes yelp into his mouth, fingers digging harder into his backside. The burning never stops, never recedes, it has made it’s mark. With every kiss taken the serum begins to linger in Dean’s blood destroying the sulfur and ash. By tomorrow morning he won’t remember the fact that he had forced himself on the other, by tomorrow morning he won’t remember that Barnes had liked this.  
  
  By tomorrow morning he won’t remember the trigger words HYDRA placed within him.  Barnes knew how to play him. And his metal bloodstained fingers drag him downwards into another searing kiss that burns them both, a fire consuming and eating both of them alive.   
  
          some peoples stories are better off as ghosts, and better forgotten.


End file.
